Containing most of the papers presented at the first International Conference on Environmental Impact and Development organized by the Wessex Institute of Technology, Environmental Impact fills the need for inter-disciplinary coverage of the most serious problems that affect sustainable development. The basic premise is that development projects need to consider the most pressing issues related to environmental impacts in order to provide complete solutions. The current emphasis on sustainable development is a consequence of a general awareness of the various environmental problems that result from our modern society. This has led to the need to assess the impact of economic investments on the environment. Investment assessment and environmental economics need to be discussed in an integrated way, in accordance with the principles of sustainability, considering the social and environmental aspects of new investments, as well as possible environmental damage, including the destruction of natural resources and larger releases of waste and pollution into the environment. The book covers such topic as: Environmental Policies and Planning; Environmental Assessments; Development Issues; Sustainable City; Economic Analysis; Natural Resources Management; Energy and the Environment; Food and the Environment; Ecosystems Health; Brownfields Rehabilitation; Water Resources Management; Soil Contamination; Air and Water Pollution; Toxicity Studies; Environmental Health Risk; Risk Analysis.

Table of Contents

Contents Section 1: Environmental policies and planning Financial planning for the decommissioning of a nuclear power plant; A synthetic indicator to evaluate the contribution of clean development mechanism projects for Latin American sustainable development; Planning documents and sustainable development of a commune in Poland; Development of the environmental policy priorities index for Japan 2010 (JEPIX 2010); Ecosystem services in the spatial policy of environmentally protected communes Section 2: Environmental assessments Improving environmental assessment: methodological considerations and practical solutions; Development of an EIA screening phase for biogas projects in Latvia; SEA systems in the Middle East and North Africa region; The role of the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in local developments: some exploratory perspectives of the stakeholders; Environmental performance improvement and ISO 14001: case of Lebanon; Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system: assessing sustainability in oil sands and heavy oil projects; Environmental diagnosis in areas with different use and occupation using the perception of diverse biological activity; Characterising movement patterns of medaka (Oryzias latipes) in response to copper analysed by using a self-organising map Section 3: Development issues Sustainable housing development in Nigeria: using low-carbon technology; Advanced materials and processes enabling sustainable growth in the aeronautic industry; Human resource management in the construction of a sustainable development project: towards successful completion Section 4: Sustainable city Cultivating our cities; The analysis of urban travellers' latent preferences to explain their mode choice behaviour; A view on urban regeneration in Turkey with local implications: Bursa case in terms of sustainability Section 5: Economic analysis Organic and conventional date farm efficiency estimation, and its determents at Riyadh Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Economic impact of climate change on Nigerian maize sector: a Ricardian analysis Section 6: Natural resources management Restoration of a degraded area using soil tillage systems in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Towards sustainability: artificial intelligent based approach for soil stabilization using various pozzolans Section 7: Energy and the environment Development of renewable energy strategies for small urban areas; Economic, technical and environmental aspects of fuel additive ENVIROX during trials with diesel engines; Research into the use of a lean burn and a stoichiometric heavy duty engine fuelled with a blend of hydrogen and natural gas Section 8: Food and the environment Food crisis: how to define it statistically?; The impact of excessive irrigation water and fertilizers on environment and groundwater quality in arid regions; Meeting the biosecurity concerns of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) through Malaysia's Strategic Trade Act 2010 and Biosafety Act 2007 Section 9: Ecosystems health Reclamation of ecological functions within a marine ecosystem: redevelopment of the Southeast False Creek lands in Vancouver, Canada; Monitoring ecosystem health of the Terminos Lagoon region using heavy metals as environmental indicators; The Ambatovy Project forest management program: a landscape approach to maintain biodiversity Section 10: Brownfields rehabilitation Evaluation of rehabilitation alternatives at the abandoned Avoca mining site in Ireland; Developing guidelines for brownfield development in South Africa; From brown shore to green shore: redevelopment of the Southeast False Creek lands in Vancouver, Canada; Turning brownfields into "green fields": growing food using marginal lands Section 11: Water resources management Case study, scenarios and the exploration of humans subjectivity for market-based instrument success: an integrated framework; Leveraging water infrastructure for transformative socio-economic development in South Africa; Aquatic realms and running water in sustainable tourism; A survey on the use of native knowledge to make the management of water resources sustainable (sample: North Eastern part of I.R. Iran) Section 12 Soil contamination Engineering environmental site investigations in the oilfields of the Western Urals: peculiarities and problems; Effects of atmospheric lead on soil microbiota in Kuwait; Indicators of soil degradation in urban forests: physical and chemical parameters Section 13: Air and water pollution The application of a new air pollution management program (PROAIR) in Mexicali 2011-2020, Baja California, Mexico; Integrative air quality management airshed by using multigas passive sampling technology in Canada; Leaching from new generation treated wood: a chemical approach; Assessment of PM10, CO and noise levels at the central area of Makkah during Hajj season 1429H (2008) Section 14: Toxicity studies Effect of di-n-butylphthalate on the development of Spodoptera frugiperda; Lewis acid catalysts: a potential exploitation for zinc and nickel phytoextraction; Evaluation of single and interactive toxicities of lead and iron using filtration rate of Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) Section 15: Environmental health risk Comparison of indoor and outdoor fungi and particles in poultry units; Effects of age, sex, and environmental factors using samples of hair from residents living in the vicinity of the Cho Dien lead/zinc mine (Vietnam) Section 16: Risk analysis Vulnerability of water source selected for emergency water supply in the Czech Republic; Risk assessment of exposure to volatile organic compounds in the holy city of Makkah